Parliament .„.
Our Parliamentary Correspondent writes : The feature of the week in Parliament has been Major Elliot's speech introducing the new Agricultural Marketing Bill. Mr. Aneurin Bevan, who himself has sadly declined from the fiery ascetic of 1929, sneered at Major Elliot as being the "idea factory of the Conservative party," but the title is really one of the highest praise. The tendency of Major Elliot's mind is to move too fast for his speech, and that has so far sometimes marred his Parliamentary manner, but he showed on Monday that no Minister has more truly grasped the psychology of this Parliament, which demands action and yet more action. The Bill is certainly drastic enough. It is designed to make efficient farming pay by granting protection in the form of the regulation of imports to any branch of agriculture or food manufacture which is willing to reorganize itself. It is based upon the conception of the twentieth-century State as an organiza- tion which is determined to protect itself both from glut and from scarcity. Success in this matter clearly depends upon an efficient working arrangement between the Minister of Agriculture, as representing producers, and the President of the Board of Trade, as representing exporters who have been accustomed to pay by their exports for the imports of food.
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